What do men want?

GQ Australia editorial

This is the question many of us girls ask ourselves when there our boyfriends, husbands birthday, anniversary or another special occasion is coming up. If we step away from the obvious: food, water, sex, car and a shelter, we will choose the gift based on how long and how well we know this man and how much we care about him. Naturally, gift will also depend upon our disposable budget.

Since one of my girlfriends recently asked me to help her find a gift for her boyfriend, I investigated a bit among my male friends and my boyfriend (since I don't consider myself to be the one who chooses the best gifts ever for men) and put together this post based on my findings.

PRACTICAL GIFTS

GQ Australia editorial

Many guys said they would love to get a practical gift for their birthday for example if they travel a lot then new earphones or a nice cosmetic bag or laptop case. 

You can find great earphones on Urban Outfiters or Top Men websites.

SURPRISE GIFTS

GQ Australia editorial

Many said they would like their girlfriends to make them a surprise dinner and welcome them dressed in sexy lingerie. One of my girlfriends Nina has recently made a surprise party for her boyfriend who is an athlete. She organized a surprise dinner in their favorite restaurant, invited all of his friends from in and out of the city and order-made him a cake in the shape of the basketball.

SPECIAL INTEREST GIFTS

My boyfriend likes to read, so for special occasions I get him a bigger gift box and inside I put together many small gifts, some personal like couple of books of his favorite authors, boxers - I found a glow in the dark boxers in Diesel. Some men collect watches, like jewelry or sunglasses so you might decide to get him a nice wooden box to store his collectibles. Special interest gifts can also be a tickets to that one very important match of your boyfriends favorite soccer or other sports team or even a yearly ticket to watch his favorite team.

Leather and metal bracelets

Wrist watch storage box with the key

Brown wrist watch storage box with the key

Sunglasses case - fits 3 pairs

PERSONAL GIFTS

Often not so expensive but always the dearest are those personal gifts we make ourselves. Again, depending on how long yo guys know each other it is always great to frame your best photo together as a gift or if you know each other longer and you can create a scrap book with your memories and photos with tickets to the movies you watched together or small stickers or postcards from your vacations this is even better. 

   For my boyfriends last birthday since he lives on his own I made a cookbook with his favorite dishes, very simply put together, each recipe in 5 steps with various meals from breakfast to dinner. I added the photos of us cooking together, at the beginning of the cookbook I put a list of basic groceries he can tear our when going grocery store and added some lyrics I wrote about our relationship at the end.

„You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.“  

Neon Summer inspiration

Last summer I posted a couple of color and pattern coded inspirational posts like orange loves pink, crochet and mint..now when I am looking back at them I can see that many trends seem to be here to stay, bright neon colors seem to be here to stay for sure, at least in summer months ahead, they certainly look lovely on the sun bronzed skin.

My favorite neon combo's are one neon piece with white and black, bright orange or leopard print.Ann Taylor makes lovely neon necklaces and Manolo Blahnik even made a neon green Manolo stilettos. 

Neon skirt - streetstyle

Neon clutch

Ann Taylor neon necklace 

Neon sneakers

Neon shorts

Neon dress editorial - Shanina Shaik Plays it Cool in Sunday Life, Shot by Jeff Hahn

Neon wrap

Neon belt and Manolos 

How do you wear your neons lovelies?

Madrid week in review....

It seems like every time I come to Madrid to work and spend quality time with my boyfriend at the same time I neglect posting a little bit cause I try to use every second of our time together wisely as these moments to do simple things like walking around the city together or watching a movie are scarce. We both work and travel a lot so this seems to be the best possible deal for the time being.

 After work and while my boyfriend was at practice or napping I used time to read and get some tan  in front of our building.

For a couple of months now I am promising to bring Monopoly from Croatia and this time I finally did, we played couple of times - first time he totally left me money-less but next couple of times I showed him who's the boss. ;)  

I had the opportunity to watch two of the quarterfinal games after which every time we traditionally go to Mimi's - the best craperia and ice-cream place in Madrid owned and managed by our charming Serbian friend Zoran and his lovely wife Soraya. You can read my post about Mimi's here.

I got this James Dean coffee cup to my boyfriend in Zagreb recently when I was getting some small presents for his parents, it reminded me of him cause he has very similar swag that James Dean had and he has his photo on D&G T-shirts he often wears. The sign on the cup said: A rebel without a cause. - this sentence also nicely describes my boyfriend ;)

Although Zoki and Sona at Mimi's have the most delicious cakes, croissants, ice-cream and salty and sweet Nutella crapes I resisted in the light of my "preparation for bikini shape" and only had a lovely ice-coffee late on the photo higher up.

While at Mimi's where we already feel and behave like at home, we call it our cafe "Cheers", the place everyone knows our name, we peaked at the daily newspaper article about my boyfriend and his best friend from the team Novica.   

Later in the week we finally went to get a tailored made jacket for my boyfriend at Scalpers which one could describe as a Rugby Ralph Lauren meets Abercrombie & Fitch hybrid. They are the only ones who were making and shipping internationally the cotton casual jacket my boyfriend wanted. If you are curious to see how this hybrid looks like you can check it out here.

Seems like this brand is in high demand as Spanish people of upper class definitely strive to look as prep as possible, you know: khakis, button up shirt, navy blazer or a cardigan thrown over the shoulders with some loafers on their feet.

Their women on the other hand look a bit like a desperate housewife's club while daughters are dressed to match mothers and boys identically like fathers - all in all, the scene looks like some Stepford horror movie.

Our friend Zoran from Mimi's took this photo, he said: "I wish my iPhone battery wasn't dead, I would take a photo of you two now!" and Ante passed his iPhone to take this picture. I remember having a short flash back of last year of travel back and forward to Madrid and all we went through in such a short time period and couldn't help noticing that we are slowly making a step progress in our relationship where I's are ever so often replaced with WE's.

I SPY: Dubrovnik.

Like all the other events in our relationship, meeting my boyfriend parents was no ordinary event.

One of my boyfriend’s best friends invited us to his wedding which was taking place in Dubrovnik where my boyfriend is from, naturally we were to stay at his parents’ house – so this was a premature meet-the-parents event.

Now, since I was arriving from Zagreb and my boyfriend was flying in from Madrid, I was cutting my attendance at Zagreb’s fashion week one day short to be able to attend this wedding and naturally had to have my hair done as well, so I arrived to Dubrovnik few hours before my boyfriend and his dad picked me up from the airport and I had to met his parents on my own.

When I was still in Zagreb I played it cool, no issue, wasn’t nervous…I purchased small gifts for his parents, I felt ready…but…when I landed to Dubrovnik I was nervous as hell.  Thankfully, the moment I saw his dad (looking just like my boyfriend but with gray hair and older) we went for a coffee, he took me to hairdressers and I was at ease.  His parents are very casual, warm hearted and kind – they made me feel like I was at home right away, I was actually a bit sorry to leave so quickly hehe J

Wedding also went well; my boyfriend was very affectionate and considerate towards me the whole night, knowing I don’t know many people there. Overall I felt comfortable; I met all of his childhood friends and had a lot of fun. We even met two little kids, one was a major fan of my boyfriend and a little girl couldn’t stop playing with my ring and my earrings.

The next morning, again, my boyfriend flew to Madrid early in the day and I stayed until later in the evening alone with his parents. Part of the time I spent with them, as I wanted to get to know them better and part of the time I used to meet a friend in the city and walk around Dubrovnik’s historic old town. 

I bought some sugared almonds, took my camera and went exploring.

 During the walk through the narrow stone covered streets an older guy (the city’s oldest barber) invited me to his barber shop in which he was sitting in and smoking with his two friends and told me the story about his barber shop which is more than 50 years old and about destructions it suffered during the war.

His shop is full of client photos, photos of celebrities who visited, naked girl’s pictures, vintage barber equipment and there were also 4 birdcages with various birds in there. His newest bird was a baby pigeon which fell from the nest. Baby pigeon didn’t have a name, so I named him Koko (the guy refused to name him Papito as I originally suggested, he already has Carlos so he said one Spanish named bird is enough).

Did you do meet – the –parents thing already lovelies? Any cool stories to share? J